LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling is all over the news today, and the comments he made about African Americans were no doubt cruel, insensitive, hurtful, and callous. I do not condone what Sterling said, and it’s obvious he should have received some sort of penalty for his comments. But as a professor of sport sociology, I also see many different angles and layers to this developing story, and think this is an interesting case study for people to further explore for future potential ramifications.
For starters, it’s interesting to observe Donald Sterling currently receiving more hatred than even Jerry Sandusky initially received, as even Sandusky had his supporters until the very end. With Sterling, however, permanent (unanimous) judgements have been made, although it appears as though we might not have the entire story (of course, what we do have so far is bad, but we are still missing his side to the story, amongst other things). Ironically, it is the outspoken Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban who has come the closest to warning us that a quick, rash decision in banning Sterling might lead to even bigger problems down the road — a “slippery slope” to quote Cuban:
“If it’s about racism and we’re ready to kick people out of the league, OK? Then what about homophobia? What about somebody who doesn’t like a particular religion? What about somebody who’s anti-Semitic? What about a xenophobe?”
Mark Cuban, like the vast majority of Americans, doesn’t give Sterling a pass on his racial remarks, but he does, however, open a much deeper discussion of what the current lifetime ban may be a precedent for in the future. It is from this angle that academics, including professors and sport science researchers – as well as sport psychology and sociology students nationwide – will want to focus their objective attention as they attempt to unravel all of the potential future concerns that will evolve from the 2014 NBA Sterling decision.
We should also be reminded that African Americans are not the only group of people who are protected from discrimination. While you may not agree with Cuban’s concerns for other minorities, they are very real — incredibly real to the people who fall into the minority groups he names in his quote who also face similar ignorant, biased, and discriminating comments from others. In fact, some athletes in recent years have been quite vocal about their disinterest in playing with gay athletes – should they be banned from playing?
There are countless questions that still need to be answered, and perhaps they will be answered if Donald Sterling decides to make himself available for a press conference. For me, some of the additional questions I would pose to my sport psychology and sociology students would include:
- Was public opinion so strong and negative that it trumped any kind of “due process” that Sterling might have (should have?) had afforded to him?
- Would having a better understanding of context made Sterling’s comments any less offensive? For example, as ESPN recently showed with their program on the N-word, African Americans sometimes jokingly use the term toward one another and it isn’t perceived as racist (whereas the same is not true for anyone not African American). If Sterling was actually joking about what he said, although it might be a joke in terribly poor taste, would it have been enough to ban him from the NBA for life? Similarly, if an athlete made an off-color joke about gay athletes, would he or she face the same scrutiny Sterling is facing?
- There appears to be a very distinct double-standard in sports when it comes to race that is still an incredibly touchy subject to broach. As was just mentioned, the N-word is OK to use amongst African Americans, but not anyone else. It also seems that many black athletes have used joking comments about white athletes not being athletic (Charles Barkley), but if a white athlete were to say something about black athletes being more athletic he or she might face the same circumstances Jimmy the Greek did many years ago.
- Are there freedom of speech concerns? As Mark Cuban said, people can be morons but are still permitted free speech as Americans.
- Is there any evidence of discriminating actions by Donald Sterling? He obviously made insensitive comments, but do we know if he actually carried out racist actions in the form of hiring/firing practices? Or discriminating against minorities interested in buying tickets?
I am not saying any of the above questions justify Sterling’s comments, but I am, like Cuban, exploring all the potential angles to what just happened. No person, be it an African American, a homosexual, or a person who is non-Christian (or even an atheist) should be subjected to racism/discrimination. Along that line of thinking we also need to go past the “you’re a racist” accusation if you are interested in objectively exploring human behavior, why certain things happen, and what we need to do to make things more fair in the future. In the case of Donald Sterling, nobody disagrees what he said was insensitive, but there are many who are wondering about the additional angles and layers to the story not yet made public.
www.drstankovich.com
athletes, ban, black, clippers, cuban, discrimination, nba, psychology, race, sociology, sport, sterling
